Research

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(In)definiteness in English and Kannada

This project investigates the syntax-semantics-pragmatics of (in)definite (a cake, the cake) and demonstrative descriptions (that cake) in English, as well as determinerless 'bare' nominals from the Dravidian language, Kannada, which can appear in many of the same contexts as English (in)definite descriptions. The challenge, familiar from investigations of the bare nominal in other so-called determinerless languages, is that neither its definite nor indefinite readings completely overlap with the distribution of English articles the and a. With definiteness in particular, the bare nominal is observed to be limited in several anaphoric contexts in comparison to its English counterparts containing definite article the. One main idea in my research is to treat the bare nominal as under-specified for (in)definiteness rather than ambiguous, which allows using the availability of alternative, indefinite readings in the Kannada bare nominal to explain its limited definiteness uses in anaphoric contexts. This explanation presents an alternative to the recently popular view that languages with definite bare nominals (like Mandarin or Thai) instantiate a uniqueness-familiarity dichotomy, whereby bare nominals can only appear in uniqueness contexts while demonstrative descriptions serve as anaphoric definites. In English, I focus mainly on indefinite and definite expressions in contexts where the meaning contribution of the accompanying determiner is seemingly vacuous, causing them to pattern with the bare nominals in languages like Kannada.

Publications:

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. Semantic incorporation in English singular indefinites. Accepted with revisions to Journal of Semantics.

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2020. An experimental investigation of the role of uniqueness and familiarity in interpreting definite descriptions. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics (PWPL).

Sadhwi Srinivas, Kyle Rawlins and Daphna Heller. 2020. Asymmetries between uniqueness and familiarity in the semantics of definite descriptions. Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), vol. 30.

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2021. On the seemingly indefinite readings of the Kannada bare nominal. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL), vol. 38.

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2022. Anaphoric variability in Kannada bare nominals. (Formal) Approaches to South Asian Linguistics (F)ASAL, vol. 10.

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. Indefinite readings in Kannada bare nominals: A unified analysis. (ms. under prep)

Conference talks and posters:

Sadhwi Srinivas, Kyle Rawlins and Daphna Heller. 2020. Uniqueness and familiarity in the comprehension and production of definite descriptions. Experiments in Linguistic Meaning (ELM) 1, Philadelphia, PA. (poster).

Sadhwi Srinivas, Kyle Rawlins and Daphna Heller. 2020. Asymmetries between uniqueness and familiarity in the semantics of definite descriptions. Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 30, Ithaca, NY. (poster).

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2020. Anaphoric variability in Kannada bare nominals. (Formal) Approaches to South Asian linguistics (F)ASAL 10, Columbus, OH. (talk).

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2020. On the seemingly indefinite readings of Kannada bare singulars. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 38, Vancouver. (talk).

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2020. Definiteness and the bare nominal in Kannada. The 94th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), New Orleans, LA. (talk).

Sadhwi Srinivas, Najoung Kim, Kyle Rawlins. 2020. Maximize presupposition and the Korean demonstrative ku. The 94th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), New Orleans, LA. (poster).

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2019. Uniqueness and familiarity in interpreting definite descriptions, Penn Linguistics Conference (PLC) 43, Philadephia, PA. (talk).

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2019. Uniqueness versus familiarity in interpreting definite descriptions, 32nd Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Boulder, CO. (poster)

Sadhwi Srinivas and Kyle Rawlins. 2018. Uniqueness and familiarity in interpreting definite descriptions, Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Linguistic Theory (CIALT) 2, Berlin. (talk).

The semantics of English As If conditionals

Justin Bledin (JHU, Philosophy) and I have been investigating the semantics and pragmatics of As If constructions that accounts for its productivity and heterogeneity of usage in English. Our study covers both descriptive uses of As If, like in (1)-(2) below, as well as the expressive denial uses such as in (3).

(1) Pedro danced as if he was possessed by demons. (adjunct as if)
(2) Pedro behaved as if he was possessed by demons. (complement as if)
(3) As if I have time to answer all these emails!

Publications:

Justin Bledin and Sadhwi Srinivas. 2022. Descriptive As Ifs. Linguistics and Philosophy.

Justin Bledin and Sadhwi Srinivas. Expressive As Ifs. (ms. under prep)

Justin Bledin and Sadhwi Srinivas. 2020. Exclamatory As Ifs. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, 24(1), 84-101.

Justin Bledin and Sadhwi Srinivas. 2019. As Ifs. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 23, 163–180.

Conference talks and posters:

Justin Bledin and Sadhwi Srinivas. 2019. Root sarcastic As If utterances, Sinn und Bedeutung 24, Osnabruck, Germany. (talk).

Justin Bledin and Sadhwi Srinivas. 2018. As Ifs, Sinn und Bedeutung 23, Barcelona, Spain. (poster).

Clausal complements in Kannada light verb constructions

In collaboration with Geraldine Legendre, I am investigating the syntax and semantics of clausal complements in Kannada, especially when they occur with light verb constructions. We attempt to demonstrate that Kannada instantiates a type of S-selection, wherein content-denoting clausal complements display different syntactico-semantic properties depending on the properties of the predicate it appears with, regardless of the morphological marking on the complement clause itself. Specifically, Kannada is claimed to display the three-way cross-linguistic complementation hierarchy described in Wurmbrand & Lohninger (2019).

Along the way, we also argue that the nominal within light verb constructions in both English and Kannada does select the content-denoting clausal complement, contra some recent views in the literature (Moulton 2009, Hankamer & Mikkelsen 2020).

Publications:

Sadhwi Srinivas and Geraldine Legendre. 2021. Clausal restructuring in the complex nominal: Evidence from participial LVCs in Kannada. In Proceedings of the 9th Formal Approaches to South-Asian Languages (FASAL 9).

Sadhwi Srinivas and Geraldine Legendre. Does D select the CP in light verb constructions: A reply to Hankamer & Mikkelsen (2021). Linguistic Inquiry.

Sadhwi Srinivas and Geraldine Legendre. Three-way clausal complementation in Kannada light verb constructions. (ms. under prep)

Conference talks and posters:

Sadhwi Srinivas and Geraldine Legendre. 2022. Aspect as an indicator of finiteness in Kannada. Formal Approaches to South Asian Linguistics (FASAL) 12, Salt Lake City, UT. (talk)

Sadhwi Srinivas and Geraldine Legendre. 2020. Content-denoting clausal complements to deverbal nouns can be arguments: Evidence from English and Kannada light verb constructions. Brussels Conference on Generative Linguistics (BCGL) 13, Brussels, Belgium. (talk)

Sadhwi Srinivas and Geraldine Legendre. 2019. Restructuring within the nominal domain in Kannada light verb constructions. Formal Approaches to South Asian Linguistics (FASAL) 9, Portland, OR. (talk).